 Poster: A snowHead
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I was just thinking whilst out milking (no connection though). Lots of you ski off-piste. We have spoken about on-piste maps before, but do you have maps that cover off-piste areas too. I mean when you launch yourselves down a steep off piste slope how do you know that you're not heading towards towards an edge, a long drop off, or crevasse. I can't see that an equivalent to an O/S map would exactly serve when you have all the features covered with n metres of snow. Do you get off-piste maps or are there odd signs here and there for you? Also, how do you know that you're going to be able to get down again to an area that will take you home?
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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I'm not a serious off-pister, yet. I did the off-piste training course this season, and will do it again next year (probably every week - it's free).
You do use OS maps to plan your route, and there are also "Itineraires" sold locally showing all the well known off piste trails.
There's a handy gadget which will tell you the angle of slope just by placing it over the contour lines on an appropriate map. Avalanches occur on slopes of between 30 and 40 degrees. Coincidentally this is the angle of slope where we have most fun recreationally. Some very clever back country people have developed a general rule of thumb for off piste beginners which is a distillation of lots of mathematical formulae and easy to remember for your average boarding dunce who is beginning to wander off piste. (i.e. Me.)
On a day with an avalanche risk of 2 you ski any slopes of less than 40 degrees - ie practically anywhere most of us would want to go.
On a day where it's 3, you would restrict yourself to slopes of 35 degrees, and areas where the slopes above you are less than 35 degrees.
For 4, see above only it's 30 degrees.
On a day where the avalanche risk is five, no one will be doing any off piste because they'll be too busy digging their way out of the hotel.
Cliffs appear on OS maps as a bunching of the contour lines and are easily spotted.
Any help?
You going backcountry soon?
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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You going backcountry soon?
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Nah, its just another idle curiosity question - I shouldn't think I'll ever be good enough to go off piste. My mind just goes off at a tangent sometimes.
That's a good explanation btw.
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| Megamum wrote: |
| Lots of you ski off-piste. We have spoken about on-piste maps before, but do you have maps that cover off-piste areas too. |
Maps? Isn't that what "guide" are for? 
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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| Mr Lizzard wrote: |
You do use OS maps to plan your route, and there are also "Itineraires" sold locally showing all the well known off piste trails.
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I didn't know your average bloke can just walk in a shop to BUY some maps with off-piste trails! Wouldn't going off-piste without a guide invalidate your insurance?
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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| Megamum wrote: |
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You going backcountry soon?
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Nah, its just another idle curiosity question - I shouldn't think I'll ever be good enough to go off piste. My mind just goes off at a tangent sometimes.
That's a good explanation btw. |
Thank you. 
BTW, if your sons are starting to make gnarly "let's off-piste!" noises you could do much worse than take them to a course like the one I did. The one in L2A is free, you get a talk the Monday evening about safety, you spend the Tuesday morning mucking around in the snow learning to use the avalanche tranceivers, then you get taken down one of the well known off piste trails by a professional guide.
If you had to pay for it, it'd cost an arm and a leg.
We got lots of goodies at the end too, but I think that was because there were only four of us.
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| abc wrote: |
| Mr Lizzard wrote: |
You do use OS maps to plan your route, and there are also "Itineraires" sold locally showing all the well known off piste trails.
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I didn't know your average bloke can just walk in a shop to BUY some maps with off-piste trails! Wouldn't going off-piste without a guide invalidate your insurance? |
They'll even sell them to children.
You have to actually want one though, or else you'd never visit the Maison de la Presse. You might stumble on it buying postcards, I suppose. The Alpe d'Huez one is quite good, I am told.
If you have proper insurance (will cost more, not sure how much), you don't HAVE to pansy about behind an adult who knows what he is doing. I think it'd be more fun to go with a guide, because then you're fairly sure that you won't fall off a cliff and you might learn a few things.
Until you've done it for a bit and want to go out with your mates, then you'd want a guide, an ARVA, a snow shovel and a stick. Oh, and proper off piste insurance.
But I guess you know this already?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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To be fair a lot of European off-piste is done without maps or the use of a guide by people who either: i) know what they are doing and can read terrain reasonably well (this isn't that hard with a bit of experience and common sense which doesn't include plunging into unknown valleys) or ii) people who are generally clueless "I thought it would be ok as there were someone else's tracks there" types.
For the bigger adventures away from lift served terrain, a guide, map, guidebook are probably a good idea as well.
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| Quote: |
Until you've done it for a bit and want to go out with your mates, then you'd want a guide, an ARVA, a snow shovel and a stick. Oh, and proper off piste insurance.
But I guess you know this already
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No plan to do any of that.
Just idle musing, like magamum.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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| abc wrote: |
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Until you've done it for a bit and want to go out with your mates, then you'd want a guide, an ARVA, a snow shovel and a stick. Oh, and proper off piste insurance.
But I guess you know this already
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No plan to do any of that.
Just idle musing, like magamum. |
The nice blokes doing the course were alarmingly keen to get us off piste. Once they'd scared the pants off us with avalanche videos, that is.
I had no plans to do so either, but a friend kept saying we should do this or that off piste, and "why don't we cut across there, you can see the tracks, it must be fine."
He only booked us into the course because he knew that was what it would take to get me to go. Practically everything he'd told me was complete testicles and would have had us in more excrement than powder.
Going with a guide was a real eye opener and if you're not a nutter there are loads of places to have fairly safe fun. Even for the risk averse, like me.
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You know it makes sense.
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| Lizzard wrote: |
You thought what, then? They're confidential documents? The government supplies them secretly to dubious clandestine organisations?
Both 2Alpes and ADH piste maps have off-piste itineraires marked on them. |
Good that they're in France. Otherwise, the publisher of those maps might get sued by gangs of the dead skiers relatives, not?
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| I had no plans to do so either, but a friend kept saying we should do this or that off piste, and "why don't we cut across there, you can see the tracks, it must be fine." |
I do have a good answer to that: "you first".
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Poster: A snowHead
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abc, That's what I said. I was accused (in French) of "fleeing" (fuir) when after 5 minutes of telling him I wasn't going, I said I'd meet them at the bottom and ponced off down the piste.
The look on his face after the avalanche talk is something I still treasure. 
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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Mr Lizzard, Is the course only in French? I can get by in French but not enough to understand something that is bound to be as technical (and crucial) as that. Otherwise I wouldn't mind having a go when in L2A next year.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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Megamum, .... local, detailed maps, on the OS type model are a pretty essential piece of kit for 'off-piste', 'backcountry', whatever its description.
Outside of the marked pistes or trails can be a dangerous place to travel. Risks can be reduced by having a clear overview of the intended route ... IN ADVANCE ....
... also very practical to be able to go through planned routes with Pisteurs, hear their advice, warnings and suggestions and of course to let them know where a group is going.
.... plus it's nice to check out various marked features and places of interest ... and of course Mountain Refuges with good lunch menus ... 
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Megamum,
The IGN maps have wee phrases like 'passage delicat' to indicate the best off piste on the routes.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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brian
brian
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Lizzard, I believe abc is based in the land of the free, not to mention the litigious.
Cairngorm, Nevis and Glencoe all feature off-piste on their maps and last time I checked the Ordnance Survey were still selling to any old unvetted punter, so I don't think the UK has regressed that far yet !
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| Colin B wrote: |
| Mr Lizzard, Is the course only in French? I can get by in French but not enough to understand something that is bound to be as technical (and crucial) as that. Otherwise I wouldn't mind having a go when in L2A next year. |
Unfortunately, the blokes doing the course don't have time to do two languages at once. I did ask, because very few seasonnaires speak French and the course is very useful.
If you went with a friend who did speak French you'd probably get by. Failing that, ask me to translate. I fully intend to do it every week if they'll let me ( ), though I'll ask if I can skip the talk after the first week, so you'd have to tell me when you'd be doing it.
Or you could spend the summer brushing up your French?
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brian
brian
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Actually I only came across this bridge looking for the sweet green grass
... but since I'm here, most of alpine Switzerland is covered by a ski tour version of their 1:50000 mapping.
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Lizzard, I'm not an example of the "general public in the UK". I'm a yank.
And I used to think that kind of litigation is unique to the "land of the free (to sue)". That is, until I come across the thread on apre about the school children having to wear cycle helmet to cross the street!!!
I'm afraid UK is not that far behind down that route...
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brian
brian
Guest
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| abc wrote: |
That is, until I come across the thread on apre about the school children having to wear cycle helmet to cross the street!!!
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Touché.
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snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
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| Megamum wrote: |
| I can't see that an equivalent to an O/S map would exactly serve when you have all the features covered with n metres of snow. |
The simple answer is that you don't always know how things will work out and you are right that snow can change a lot of terrain. Stuff where it is not possible to walk or climb is skiable - such as flagstones at 45-50 degrees and some stuff that was walkable no longer is due to ice or unstable snow.
French topo maps can give a guide but they can also trip you up. Here we climbed to a summit (zig-zag trail) called the Grand Sorbier near the 1968 Olympic resort of Chamrousse. You can see my GPS trail.
Looking at the map it seemed we could ski down the west face, turn north towards point 2235 meters then ski the gulley to the south-west under the rock bands. I knew the gulley was skiable as I had crossed under it earlier. From the contour lines the slope looked around 30 degrees. Nothing of the sort, after a steep couloir of 45 degrees we ended up on a plateau surrounded by cliffs. No possible exit. In fact the rock bans formed a complete loop like a horseshoe. Nothing for it but to climb back up and try to the south where we found an exit.
I think Donald Rumsfeld best summed up route finding off piste
"We know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know."
However two rules of thumb:-
1. if the slope is icy do a U-turn before it is too late
2. if the slope is convex it is a "known unknown", do a U-turn before it gets too steep to do a U-turn.
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And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
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brian, Ahh....that's the sort of product that I wondered if it were produced - obviously yes! They sound like a good product and obviously geared towards snow covered country.
I must say I do rather like the concept that you can actually ski to 'somewhere' - a vantage point, restaurant, bar etc. rather than just take the lift there - it rather implies that you start off by going high first thing in the day and gradually work down. I was amazed by the thread that spoke about the father and son team who seemed from the thread to go across various slopes and into different areas and seemed to travel several miles in a day. It implied that there are situations where the areas from one resort overlapped with areas from other resorts.
I can't wait until I get good enough to experience some of this - I'll just have to see whether a few hours with instruction in English at MK in June can consolidate my other lessons so far. I've never been taught in a language I can speak before so it might make all the difference.
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I do rather a lot in the mountains around the world but have never felt the need for using a map off piste. Admittedly I only dabble a bit, but skiing is generally constrained to downhill, lets face it... for most low level off piste skiers ending up in the wrong vally is just not going to be an issue. I do always carry a compass for general route finding having first looked at the piste maps to find general directions. If route finding is going to be of importance then learn to use a map and compass and only then pack a GPS in your sac for the real emergencies and bad weather situations.
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You know it makes sense.
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for most low level off piste skiers ending up in the wrong vally is just not going to be an issue
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It turned into a major issue for one of my guests last winter - there's a thread about it somewhere. Went off in the wrong direction, spent all day grovelling down cliff faces, eventually got stuck and was picked off by Mountain Rescue at nearly midnight. No map, compass, shovel, off-piste kit or even a helmet. His snowboard is still out there somewhere, but I'd have to do a lot of trekking about with no paths in order to retrieve it, so I haven't bothered.
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Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
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Hi,
Just a quickie,
There's a couple of new books out now that although are not really a map as such explain alot of the off piste routes in the 3 valleys and Paradiski with pictures and routes marked and explained in detail,English and French.Very nice hardback books
http://www.givois.com
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Poster: A snowHead
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Surely the most common way that people start doing off piste is first side of piste and between pistes where the route is easily visible, then scouting out a potential off piste pitch a couple of times from the chairlift, maybe where skiers or multiple tracks can already be followed down? Sure there's the potential for a hairy situation, but if done sensibly and carefully with some knowledge of snow and terrain it can be perfectly safe.
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Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
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| slikedges wrote: |
| Surely the most common way that people start doing off piste is first side of piste and between pistes where the route is easily visible, then scouting out a potential off piste pitch a couple of times from the chairlift, maybe where skiers or multiple tracks can already be followed down? Sure there's the potential for a hairy situation, but if done sensibly and carefully with some knowledge of snow and terrain it can be perfectly safe. |
I guess that's how most people start, but these areas can be just as likely to avalanche as terrain deep into the backcountry. So get you and ski friends kitted out, and try to learn some rudimentary avalanche avoidance info so as not to tempt fate too far.
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Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
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rob@rar, I don't think you'll convince most to get kitted out or get a guide to do the easiest of these sorts of pitches. They'll just have a go for themselves, and after a while, if they like it, they'll then invest in kit or get a guide to take them further afield. Avalanche knowledgs OTOH I think even piste skiers should have some of.
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You need to Login to know who's really who.
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Never an answer answer and the further afield you go the more you need to know in advance. When planning a route that we may have picked out a few days before, you might get quite a few looks at it from a different angle. You might decide when is the best time of the day to do it. You might see the top and have to guess how the bottom pans out. You need the best picture you can get. Often people might ask us if we think they can do what we have planned and we can't say, because we haven't done it...so youi need to have either confience that you can handle yourself or you need to go with someone who knows. All of this stuff you build up over a period of years and you make your own decisions. Mostly the group will adhere to someone's call if they say they don't fancy it... no one has a definitive opinion on some of these things, some are better educated than others but its not unheard of for guides to make miotakes. It can be a dangerous sport and you should always know that you are there because the conditions allow it... these can change, so you try and put the best odds your way and then decide if you like the risk.
If you are out there unguided then you should be able to cowboy over rocks and maybe handle a small rope. You should be able to see a route and you should have plan B and C for if you get into trouble. You should definitley know where you are trying to go and how to get there.
All this is why groups of like-minded people form and ski these things, you may have to trust the peeps to help you out, and they you. If you can't do most of this, you need a guide and they are almost always an education in the mountains.
With all this talk of off-piste, you can get the idea that it is easy.... well, if it goes well, it can be. You see some great TR's here but these people can look after themselves and it is not just a long hike in snow on a fine day.
The frightening thing is that some skis make the terrain easier to ski.....so you don't need 20 weeks over 10 years to just get started looking at the fluffy stuff, you can do it much sooner...when people talk about what is traversing or sideslipping etc , you haven't skied enough to go, IMV.
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Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
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JT, Thanks, a good and informative read, sobering though it is.
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You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
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No different, I suppose, from some other potentially dangerous sports, such as sailing. There's a lot to know, but some people get away with knowing very little. Some people learn by doing it alongside others who are much more experienced, and gradually get to take on more and more themselves, others spent a lot of time in night school, and reading books, and know a lot in theory but nothing in practice. Some do a lot, have a lot of experience, but no knowledge, and somehow seem to learn nothing from watching and talking to those who lead them Some of the people who get drowned are idiots, but some are highly skilled and experienced people who take on very tough challenges in the full knowledge of everything that can go wrong. Equally, lots of idiots get away with it a lot of the time. You don't need to know very much to take a doddle across the Firth of Clyde on a nice day; you need to know a lot more to take on the Mull of Kintyre, and you need to understand the difference. You can carry on learning indefinitely and you need to have confidence in your own ability, be conscious of your physical and mental limitations, and of those in your team, and be ready to take on new challenges without being foolhardy. You need to be able to read maps (charts) but there's a whole lot they don't tell you, and it's different every day, and every hour of every day. A nice piece of mountain (or sea) you thought you knew well can become a frightening, unknown, malevolent environment, or a piece of equipment (or a piece of you) can break at the wrong moment and far from help. The French areas I know have a notice on the edge of the pisted areas with various bits of sage advice including "Know when to to give up" (or at least, I think that's what it means). Good advice.
But for all that, I think it's true to say there are more mountain deaths in the Cairngorms in summer than in winter; most of the people out there in the winter know what they're doing. And it's still probably safer than sitting on a sofa waiting to die of an early heart attack brought on by inactivity....or driving around when drunk.
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pam w, I think you're right, there are many parallels, esp on the knowledge (or lack of) front and the way it's accrued. I suspect though that in one way in particular they are different. Do correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd expect just about everyone to take along a life jacket of some description and know how to use it? (maybe they don't put them on!)  One further thought, surely there must be some form of effective dedicated personal detection beacon by now?
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So how are folks that go off piste viewed by those in charge of the ski resorts - are those that prepare well and take adequate care seen as welcome sources of income to the communities, or as unwarranted nuisances who put the community mountain rescue services at risk? Technically is it legal to go off piste or are you tresspassing?
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You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
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Depends which country you are skiing in.
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Megamum,
In Europe;
If you are taking in trips off the back of somehwere lift served, then the resorts generally promote this facility. They aren't shouting do this or that, but they like the fact that people know the resort has that type of skiing. Of course, they might put up a sign saying the area is high alpine territory and you go there at your own risk. This is known and accepted by most and you should take it that you are on your own from here on. The local guides will certainly view most of this as 'their' terrain.
Nobody is looking for accidents but the piste can be quite a popular place for that as well. I think the resorts/communities want people to come and explore and share their mountain and as long as you are repsectful, aren't too cavalier and take sensible precautions, then your excursions and the thrill and buzz you can get are viewed as a source of pride by them.
There are a few areas that are marked as no-go areas, these might include national parks, young trees areas - as skis butcher young saplings which might be planted for future avalanche protection and people respect this as it could be their lives- and maybe areas for animals.
The whole concept is go where you like and at your own risk so know your limits.
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FAQ
